


Cold Showers, colder nights

by The_silent_smile



Series: The not-so-happy life of Anthony Edward Stark [7]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Crying, F/M, How Do I Tag, How is that not a tag yet?, Hurt Tony, Hurt Tony Stark, I Blame Tumblr, I Don't Even Know, Lots of it, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Pepper Potts Dies, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Showers, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Tony Angst, Tony Feels, Tony Has Issues, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony-centric, Waterboarding, Well she dusted, anyway this is sad, brief mention of waterboarding, oh yeah wait, suicidal Tony stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-02 05:34:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19192792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_silent_smile/pseuds/The_silent_smile
Summary: On good nights my arms are around her and her head rests on my chest.On bad once she sleeps on the couch or curled up under the large blanket alone while I stumble towards and hide in the only place know that will calm my mind by simply being there: the lab.On the worst once, she comes down there, a frown carving into her flawless skin and eyes dark with worry.





	Cold Showers, colder nights

Trigger/Squick warning: talk of past trauma/PTSD, intentionally triggering PTSD, (very brief) mention of suicidal intention/ drinking.

I take cold showers.

Not because I would particularly enjoy the feeling of the cold water like some rather strange people I have met or because I've read somewhere that it would be good for you.  
Not because I'm scared of the gas bill that would appear later, I'm a billionaire so whoever thought that was the reason might need to go see their nearest doctor to get a checkup and a brain scan.

I simply take them because I feel I am not deserving of the pleasurable feeling that the hot water provides us with.

It also helps me minimize the time I spend in the glass box that forms the shower in the bathroom connected to our bedroom.

Because, since Afghanistan, water hitting my face isn't the most pleasant feeling a man with a makeshift heart can have. It has given me a hard time breathing more then I'd like to discuss, never sure if the droplets rolling down my face were tears or simply the water itself.

And cold water worsens it.  
So I waste as little time as possible, as little water as possible when pepper forces me to shower because, and I quote: 'Tony I love you but I am not going to sleep in the same bed as you if you smell like a sweaty gym shoe.'

And who am I to deny my soon to be wife.

So I shower.  
And I lay next to her, her hand usually finding the source of the soft blue glow on my chest and covering it with her slender fingers, ring ticking onto the glass as she does so, a motion I had always found soothing when in a bad mindset.

Well, the word 'bad' could be applied to most of the mindsets I find myself in so let me correct myself too 'one of the worst mindsets.'

On good nights my arms are around her and her head rests on my chest.

On bad once (correction not needed because you have probably already realised I use the terms 'good' and 'bad' rather loosely) she sleep on the couch or curled up under the large blanket alone while I stumble towards and hide in the only place know that will calm my mind by simply being there: the lab.

On the worst once, she comes down there, a frown carving into her flawless skin and eyes dark with worry.

On those nights she has to talk me out of one of the older suits. The shell giving me comfort and clarity while also worsening my state. Has to find a new way to break through yet another bomb shelter I've built around my nuke-shaped mind and, if it gets incredibly bad, had to prevent a drunk and most definitely hyperventilating me from testing a repulsor on my own head.

I had sworn off drinking for her.  
But if my mind was playing the events from New York and the worst fear Wanda had visualised on repeat, it was so easy to order Friday to get me a few bottles, too easy to override the code I had written myself to prevent breakdown me from getting my hands on alcohol and various other types of objects and beverages that could potentially harm me.

Almost so easy that I start to wonder if I really want to prevent it from happening.

And on good nights I lay in her arms and she in mine, watching her peaceful and incredibly beautiful resting face as her chest, covered by one of my old band shirts that are too big for her, giving her even more reason to steal them and me more to admire her in them as hr ribcage rises and sinks in a slow peaceful rhythm.

And on good days I invite Bruce to the lab, both of us content with working in silence with the other presence to ground us both. Both working on our own project with the soft background noise of an 80's rockband drowning out the silence.

But I take cold showers.

And as the water hit my skin, it feeling like every drop burned me and tried to drown me at the same time I clutch my stomach, the wound I had closed on a planet many memories away looking perhaps healed from the outside but having cause severe damage on some of the internal organs, having me still, months later, cough up blood.

What a nice metaphor that was for my life.  
Outside looks pretty while the inside is absolutely shitfaces.

And I take cold showers.

As the alcohol, a slightly familiar but concerned looking grey-haired old man had brought me coursed through my body, the pleasant buzz having become a rapid pounding against my skull, the effect hit me like a truck after so many months without it or enough other food or water really, I dared to close my eyes.

My mistake was made clear as the only thing I was able to see was the thing that had burned itself into the inside of my eyelids since I first saw it two days ago; The engagement ring I had given Pepper after Happy had kept it safe for so many years, laying on the couch, slightly covered by the pile of ashes around it and on the floor.

And I take cold showers.

Because, in the three lonely years that followed before the other remaining heroes convinced me to help them return the universe to its previous state, I did not see the point in waisting warm water on a body that would never feel warm, or even remotely alive again.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, the tags gave it away but I like to think that I still shocked some people.  
> Once again this one is older and Endgame wasn't out yet nor were the posters confirming who was alive and who wasn't.


End file.
